by Dacia Nichol
The latest and greatest social program failure should suggest only one thing: government involvement in anything is a bad omen. Massachusetts is having a problem with its budget, and guess what? Its newly-minted state health care program seems to be the thing causing the biggest headaches.
Now this fact seems to be drawing mixed emotions from both sides of the aisle. Why? Because Republican governor and strong presidential contender for 2012 Mitt Romney was the big force in charge of said health care mandate.
Disclaimer: This author is an outright screaming advocate for Romney's presidency in 2012 and shall not be shy in her bias as such when addressing relevant subject matter.
Everyone wanted to solve the Massachusetts health care puzzle in 2006: Liberals wanted the taxpayers to pay for a universal solution, and Republicans wanted a free market solution. So who won? They both did - and therein lies the problem (for more on this see "Overloading the well-oiled machine").
To begin with, we'll address the question that's been floating around the last few days given the spotlight focus of health care at the moment: Will Mitt Romney's future presidential bid be hampered by his support and impending failure of the Massachusetts State Health Insurance ("MassHealth") passed under his governance?
No. Let me tell you why.
Mitt Romney's plan was in fact the best we could hope for as far as success in universal health care - it had the least financial burden on the taxpayer possible, with options and automations to make health care access nearly streamlined, yet it still cost too much and was too bogged down with bureaucracy to successfully function. Romney's plan aimed to address a few things: 1) The $ millions it cost to pay for emergency care used by uninsured individuals; 2) the high cost of care for individuals with health insurance due to a small pool of individuals paying into the system (READ: young and healthy residents not paying for insurance because they don't need it); and 3) lowering premiums by eliminating unnecessary benefits such as maternity care for individuals under 25.
Romney's plan worked with private insurance to lower the purchasing cost so that it could be accessible by all. Yes, that's right - AFFORDABLE health insurance with a Republican in charge. Then the government mandate requiring health insurance coverage was set up to add more funds to the health care pools (paying healthy individuals) thereby lowering all insurance premiums. Finally, there was the auto-enrollment feature that ensured your coverage even if residents got lazy about it, brunting the cost the hospitals would usually face from uninsured individuals.
So what happened?
Let us remember this as a lesson in what has been an issue for the country as a whole: The captain is conservative, but his liberal crewmen are constantly trying to undermine him. Ultimately, the responsibility for the safety and security of the ship will fall upon the captain, effectively freeing those out of the limelight to tweak away, eroding the efficiency and positive results of the programs set forth by the leader. In sum, Mitt was a Republican, but the legislative body he was working with was overwhelmingly liberal. The discord was apparent when Romney vetoed 8 sections of the MassHealth bill, all of which were promptly overturned - and when he made further proposals for effectiveness and quality, they were rejected and excluded from the bill by the legislature. IN FACT, Massachusetts is currently proposing to eliminate or significantly cut funding for at least one of these same vetoed initiatives. The reason being that, guess what? They can't afford it!
You see, Romney, being the successful business man that he is, understood that money doesn't grow on trees (although Mass has some gorgeous greenery...). His original plan had more fiscal restraint that arguably could have prevented some of these MassHealth funding issues. Things like dental, vision, public health programs, and additional money for those already covered by federal programs are nice, but financially just not feasible in the long term - or to use the recent news buzz word on the topic - "unsustainable". Romney knew this, objected to such funding measures, and was ignored anyhow. Hello budget crisis! Don't you just love bipartisanship?
Despite the good will behind MassHealth, there's still the overall lesson to be had about government and private industry: not good bedfellows. More research into MassHealth reveals the additional bureaucracy that stifled progress - the employer mandates for instance. The whole attitude was "do it or else". Obviously, something like universal coverage is going to need creativity to bankroll, but after drafting page after page of legislation to make it so, one must beg the question - is this really necessary?
So to conclude the topic over whether the MassHealth nose dive will hurt Romney, you can find comfort in knowing that it won't - as long as he keeps control of the spin that's going to be thrown at him about it that is. Like him or not, Romney proved something about himself with MassHealth - he's a true representative of his people. The people of Massachusetts told him what they wanted, universal coverage, and he tried everything he could to make it work despite his knowledge that the chances of its success were slim. No agenda pushing - he listened and responded. As far as achieving it's goal, MassHealth was in fact a success - the percentage of uninsured individuals in Massachusetts looms around a mere 2%. Left at the helm to watch over MassHealth's progress in relation to the rest of the budget, who knows? Maybe Romney would have pulled out more solutions to resolve the problems. After all he did manage to pull the miracle of balancing the state budget 4 years in a row with a liberal congress waiting for their opportunity to pounce.
He listened, he acted, it still didn't work, so let's move on and accept the fact that universal coverage just doesn't work in reality. Let's take the successes of lowering premiums and making coverage accessible and affordable and drop the failing parts - taxpayers funding socialization of our medicine.
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